Remember the monkey trials? It was in all the papers! Turn them around and you have the Planet of the Apes.

Charlton Heston spends 2,000 years in a spaceship (you know there's that weird time stuff that happens when you travel near the speed of light). The ship lands and he and his buddies are on this really sucky planet where humans are the savages and apes are the intellectuals.

The buddies get killed off by gorillas. Luckily, Chuck finds a nice squeeze named Nova he can tell his troubles to. A nice lady chimp named Zira and her squeeze, Cornelius, decide to help Chuck who, by now, has been shot and is being put on trial as something "icky." The chimps end up on charges of heresy for their perverse theories of evolution.

Planet of the Apes is an exercise in the arguments of religion versus evolution. The minister of science is also the defender of the faith, so how hard do you think he's going to look for the truth? It turns out he knows the truth, but that's not the side of his bread the butter is on.

This was a breakthrough film in the area of makeup. Never before had latex appliances been used on such a grand scale. Later science fiction and horror films owe much to Planet of the Apes.

A little slow by today's standards, but still a great plot with something to say.